Caption: SDO's Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit -- Path Sequence. NASA image captured June 5-6, 2012. On June 5-6 2012, SDO is collecting images of one of the rarest predictable solar events: the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. This event happens in pairs of eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until 2117.